Marcus the Unclean
Marcus stroked the leather-wrapped hilt of his executioner’s sword with his right hand, while his left clutched the charm around his neck. The Edler Sigmar of Blackshear gave him the tool.
God, how he detested that damnable blade. It had taken everything from him. Four winters ago, when he was twelve, he’d been given it, and that same bitter, hyperborean day, he’d killed a man. Blackshear had its first murder in eight years, but until then, it was too small to have an executioner.
Not until Barnet, the merchant, strangled the eight-year-old girl, Tally Mercier, to death. No one knew or cared to puzzle out his calamitous motives, but the devil inspired him in one form or another, which was enough to separate his head from shoulders.
He was picked for the grim task for two reasons. Polite society did not accept him because he was a bastard child. Being an executioner was an unclean but necessary duty. He could attend mass as a bastard, but now he never tread past the narthex. The sweat sermons, the chants, and the joy still reached his ears, although he could never step inside. The other reason was his age. Barnet’s shameful crime deserved a painful death, and a young man couldn’t swing like an older man. So, six awkward chops later, the killer’s blood squirted from the stump of his neck onto the snow-covered courtyard.
Since then, he’d been unclean, which was why he stood in front of the tangled, reeking mess that was the Blackshear swamp. It, too, was an unclean place, and the ordinary folk of Blackshear feared to tread in its shadows. Before God’s elect had purged the land of the savage pagans, they performed their ghastly rituals in honor of their even more ghastly gods. Here, they sacrificed both young and old to the merciless water god Exitium De Generae.
Six days ago, a young, dark-haired girl named Angelina had disappeared. At first, they assumed she’d run away with one of the many traveling merchants or soldiers. The worthless scoundrels came in droves after they hacked a road through the thick, wild woods to the East. However, the girl took none of her possessions.
Old man Harrison spotted a campfire in the gloom of the feculent swamp, and rumors spread faster than the pox that it might be highwaymen. Only Godless men doing the devil’s work would camp in the accursed place, so they reasoned they might be responsible.
He pulled the Wheellock rifle off his riding pony. Sigmar, the younger, had let him use the gun. He owned an old muskit, but the smoking slow match was unsuitable for scouting work. The Wheellock cost more than his yearly wage, and it was adorned with silver inlay of bears, wild boars, and creeping grapevines. With it, he was to search the woods and report his findings back to Sigmar, the younger; the town’s men would decide what to do next.
They would not trek into the scummy, black swamp, even if someone lurked there. Too many whispered tales of demoniac shades, red-eyed feral hounds, and the wicked dead lingering about the profaned land. No, they would let the unclean one go, and the townsfolk would try to catch the retches as they left their stagnant hiding place.
After the conviction, he would hang them. They reserved death by the sword for those of noble birth. Having a trifling amount of noble blood, Barnet demanded beheading, and Edler Sigmar of Blackshear gave it to him in the most painful way possible. So Marcus’s blunt-tipped executioner’s sword swung.
He gripped the charm around his neck again. It was a delicate silver chain holding two small but potent objects. The first was a silver crucifix, and he trusted it above anything else. The other was a piece of rope that hung around the young neck of a thief named Max Holbert. Marcus had kicked the stool from under his feet. After the life drained from his bulging green eyes and the waxen moon stalked across the purple sky, he cut the poor devil down. It was then he’d claimed his grizzly prize. Hangman’s rope was said to make a man impervious to both sword and shot. At least, that’s what many of the soldiers that ramble into town attested.
He tied his pony off to a stately elm and moved towards the festering swamp with rifle and sword. The oppressive sun all but disappeared as he pushed deeper under the sprawling canopy. Few slivers of golden light punctured the blanket of green, and the temperature lowered faster than he thought possible in the semidarkness. He’d started this trip early, dreading the idea of wandering the haunted morass at night. Now he didn’t think it mattered much with as little light that leaked through. The ground turned to muck as tall weeping willows and cypress trees replaced elms and chestnuts.
The buzzing of biting flies and maquettes was the only sound besides his sloppy, sucking footfalls. He strived for silence, but even the stealthiest cat could not have managed this sludge without sound.
With all the ducking, squirming, and squatting required to move in the thick underbrush, the rifle on his shoulder soon felt like a millstone. Hours passed as he searched the wild and unholy place. He scarcely knew what direction to travel. The full size of the swamp was a mystery to him, and any bandit could hide for weeks without fear. He pulled out his water flask and took a deep swig. Angry bug bites swelled on his arms and legs. Mud filled his boots, and hate was building in his soul.
Angelina was a dream. She was a wonderful, well-bred, joyous creature. Marcus knew his unclean lips would never kiss her, which nested something evil in his breast. It was a vexing little devil that he’d not yet mastered, and even now, it whispered to him to sit and waste the day. Why should he trouble himself for a girl that would be mortified if he spoke to her? He took another greedy swig from his flask, trying to drown the pesky little imp, and since he was now moving again, it seemed to have worked.
The trees in this swamp had never seen an ax, so they grew to monstrous proportions. Their twisted limbs were as big as regular tree trunks, and their bark was as thick and gnarled as the scales of an archaic, wrathful dragon.
The wind swished the long tendrils of the willow trees, and on that wind, he caught a scent. Smoke, it was the unmistakable smell of smoke. The old man wasn’t lying when he’d said he thought he’d seen a campfire glow. Like a hunting hound, he followed the odor. As a beast, he felt the anticipation of spotting his prey spread to his lean muscles.
Swift were his footfalls and sure his steps. His heart thumped in his chest like a kettle drum beaten by a furious man. Slow, he had to slow down. He could not give himself away because of haste, and he couldn’t stumble headlong into their camp.
He took deep breaths, tasting of smoke. Marcus crouched low, knowing they were close, and he caught the orange flicker of flame through the vibrant green veil of leaves. He halted his advance. As he started his search, he had expected to find only tree-creepers, snakes, and stages, but he’d found more. He had confirmed they were here, and his job was done. He could turn back, and no one would think him a coward. How could they? They were too afraid to step foot in this humid, barbarous waste, so they could say nothing of his nerve or grit.
Something inside, small but gnawing, would not let him turn. He had to lay eyes on them. Marcus had to know how many and of what temper the men were. He’d see them eye to eye if they were found guilty, and he would not hesitate to rope their necks. He had executed six men and one woman; only the first three gave him nightmares for a time.
He crept onward, crouching ever lower and endeavoring to be more silent. In little time, he weaved his way from one brush patch, tree, and small berm to another. He took position behind the furrowed roots and trunk of wicked old cypress and peeked around the massive trunk so slowly that even death himself might have mistaken Marcus for one of his own.
There, he saw the two of them. One was a fat, older man wearing a bright blue robe and red stockings, and his cracked and lined face told the tale of a harsh and toiled-filled life. He gripped a bottle of red wine and took gulps in between, trying to wave the swirling smoke away from his face. The other was a younger man. He was still far older than Marcus, and he estimated his age to be in his mid-thirties. He had a cliff-like forehead and dull, uncomprehending eyes.
The older man chatted with the younger man, who nodded and smiled. A crude leather belt was strapped to the younger man’s hip and hooked to that belt was an even cruder falchion. On the fire, a roasting game bird sizzled on a makeshift wooden spit. If they had hunted a fowl, it meant that they had either a gun, a sling, or a bow somewhere. Although, he couldn’t spy any such weapon.
He saw two packs placed by the fire: one wicker and the other, leather. Not seeing a third implied it was just the two of them. He knew he might be wrong, but he didn’t believe himself to be. The ember that bade him not to turn away now bade something else. There were simply two of them, and he held a rifle clenched and at the ready.
What if?
What if he took them?
Would Edler Sigmar be so grateful and impressed that he would commute his life sentence of being the executioner?
It wasn’t all bad. He had more gold than most. He could afford a library of printed books, small as it was, and he had real green forest glass in some of his winds, as small as they were.
Yes, he had gold. No one wished to be the executioner, as they knew what it meant, so they had to pay them well. However, even with all that coin, he had nothing or no one to spend it on. He would give away all of it to have people look him in the eye and wave when he walked past them. He would give it all away to have a pretty, young, respectable girl at his side and a smiling babe on his knee.
That quick, his destiny set itself, and his lank form rose from cover. He marched with a grim expression and sure, steady steps towards the men. His rifle was ready, and he aimed at the dull-eyed man.
“Make no move,” he barked, and both men turned to him with wide-eyed bewilderment.
The fat man raised his hands as he said, “Afternoon, friend.” The waving vibrato of fear was in his voice as he continued, “Have we accidentally trespassed on your land? We thought no one would lay claim to such a harsh parcel.”
“No... you have trespassed on no one’s land. It is a moral trespass that concerns me.” Marcus said.
“Is our money the trespa...”
“I am no thief. I have seen firsthand how they end at the rope, and I have no intention of joining them.”
The dull-eyed man stepped forward and said, “Then tell us why you point a gun and speak with harsh words.”
“Hush, Gordan.” The fat man growled, and the dull-eyed man named Gordan shot him a glare.
“Six days ago, a girl from our town went missing.”
“What?” the fat man said. “We are simple merchants.”
“You’re less than a Way’s hour from town, yet you perched in this accursed swamp like bandits.”
The fat man looked confused as he said, “My good boy, I am old and have a round belly, and I carry only a dagger for cutting fish and game birds. Who could I ever intimidate?”
“A young girl, perhaps, but it doesn’t matter. We’re going back to town. Both of you are coming. So Gordan, place your falchion on the ground.” Marcus looked over at the fat man and said, “I’ll have your blade too, old man.”
Gordan jutted his chin, and through his thin lips, he said, “I’ll not leave the blade. It was given to me by my father, and his father gave it to him.”
“I’ll carry it for you then.”
Gordan glanced over at the fat man as if to say he wouldn’t do it.
“I will shoot you in the gut if you refuse.”
Gordan snapped his attention back to Marcus, and his eyes were cold and hate filled. His hand slipped down to his hilt as he locked eyes with Marcus.
Marcus held his rifle with his right hand and pulled out his sword with his left. “You see this sword?”
Gordan snorted.
“Do you know why it doesn’t have a tip?”
Gordan’s eyes searched the blade. It took a moment, but recognition of the sword style gripped the man. “It’s an executioner’s sword,” he mumbled. “Why would a boy like you have one of those?”
“Because I’m the executioner and have hacked many a head off with this blade. So, I’ll not hesitate to fire my shot into your belly.”
Gordan exhaled, and his hand went from his hilt to his belt buckle. He slid the belt off and let the sword and sheath slide to the ground.
“Don’t worry, Gordan,” the fat man said. “We’re just taking a little walk, and we are going to make it as fun as possible.”
It wasn’t long after that the two men marched in front of Marcus, and he did his best to keep his rifle trained on them. He forced the men to march south. He’d not take the same path he had taken on the way in. It was almost impossible to find the exact path. The tortuous trees all looked the same, but he knew he was heading in the rough direction. After he hit farmer Oxten’s pasture, it would be easy to trek back to his pony.
They moved through the scratching brambles and relentless swarms of flies with only a few complaints from the fat man. Gordan said nothing, but his eyes scanned the environment, looking for some place to bolt. But Marcus wasn’t about to play that game. He swerved the reluctant duo away from any inviting thickets.
Ahead of him, the fat man stumbled and huffed. “If you are going to take me to my doom for a crime I didn’t commit, you should have at least let me bring my wine. Tabernacle, I would have even let you have some.”
“I don’t drink,” Marcus said. He was already an outsider, and he didn’t want to pile drunkard onto the list of reasons for people to avoid him.
The fat man came to a halt, and his flabby arms retracted. He bent and contorted every muscle on his face. “My lord,” he said, with disgust dripping from every word.
“What is it?” Gordan said, stepping forward and peering through the underbrush. He turned to Marcus with a grim face. Marcus gripped the hilt of his rifle tighter. This had to be a trick, and they were trying to get the upper hand.
“What is it?” Marcus said, holding his position. He didn’t want to get too close to them. If they caught him off guard, they could overpower him, and he would not let that happen.
The fat man swallowed hard and said, “A body. A girl, I think. There’s all sorts of stuff around her.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Looks like...” His eyes rolled towards the sky as he searched for the words. “The devil’s work.”
Marcus made them stand to the side, and he eased to where they had been. He surveyed the foliage as sweat rolled down his temple.
As the drip hit his chin, he caught sight of a bright yellow something, and as he glared at it, it came further into focus. The fuzzy details sharpened, and he realized he was staring at the filthy remains of a dress. Inside that dress was the rotting husk of what had once been Angelina.
Her black braided hair was littered with sticks and leaves, and the bugs had gotten to work on her face. He’d seen dead people before. He’d seen rotten dead people before, but never someone so young. Marcus had never witnessed a young girl he dreamed about dancing with, chatting with, and kissing splayed out like rotten trash.
What had been her eyes was now a buzzing mass of fat flies and wriggling maggots. In her chest was a rusted knife.
Around her, crude handmade beads hung from twigs and branches. Tied with those beads were bunches of monkshood flowers. Their purple petals had wilted like Angelina in the swamp. The small bundles of flowers hung from limbs and were tossed about her festering body.
Marcus gritted his teeth and said, “May God let me kick the stool from under the men’s feet that did this. I want to see them hanging from the neck. I will hear them scream, cry, confess, and die.”
He turned to the men, and neither they dared to dart or make a sound. If they were the rogues that committed this predatory act, why were they as shaken as he? They would have known the body was here, but not once did they try to slow, halt, or turn him. Marcus wasn’t sure they did this, but he wasn’t about to let down his guard either.
He was torn between hefting her out of this wicked place and letting her lie. If he let her lie, others, if they would come, might find clues he was too dimwitted to spy. He stood straight-backed in the swampland, pondering his next move.
He used his sleeve to rub the sweat and grime from his forehead. As he finished, he heard it. The snap of a branch came from up ahead, and he crouched in the brush from pure animal instinct. Marcus glanced at the other men and brought a finger to his lips. “Hush,” he whispered as both of them took cover.
They sat in the stillness, not daring to let word or breath slip from their lips. The lonesome, jittering song of a bee-eater bird hung in the distance, but no other sound echoed through trees.
What was it? It couldn’t have been his imagination. The other men caught it too, which was some testament to his sanity.
“Marcus,” a gruff voice said from behind him. He twisted on his heels and swung his rifle around. He caught sight of a plump form standing about twenty feet away, and it took a moment for him to understand what he was seeing.
It was Mr. Bramble. He was the town’s baker, and he’d moved from Tavern City six years ago. He bought the bakery from Mr. Parthians after he became too old.
He was a pug-faced man with a wiry, black beard and enormous belly. He’d not bothered to take off his apron, which was smeared with gray and black mud. “I knew they would send out someone to find my love, but I thought the bickering would go on until I could close up shop. I didn’t hear you were coming out until midday.”
“Mr. Bramble?” Marcus said, as his mind still tried to make the ever-vacillating puzzle pieces fit together.
Mr. Bramble smirked. “Just a tip, next time you hunt for something, it’s best not to stand downwind of it. I could smell your reek from some distance.”
“You killed her?” Marcus said, as his finger eased onto the trigger.
Mr. Bramble shook his head with slow, steady certainty. “Did I kill her? No, I sacrificed her. I offered her to Exitium De Generae, and now I’m much more than I was.”
Marcus glanced over to Gordan, who stood with fist clenched, and his piercing eyes locked on Mr. Bramble. His sneer gave no pretense of masking the disgust his heart held. “He did it,” Marcus said. “He sacrificed her to the devil.”
Gordan nodded.
“The devil.” Mr. Bramble’s smile was evident in his words.
“Call it Exitium De Generae if you will, but it is a devil. Of this, I have no doubt.”
Mr. Bramble scratched at his unkempt beard and said, “I don’t care if it is the devil himself. I still got what I wanted.”
“You wanted to hang by the neck until you lose your bowels? Well, then Satan has honored your deal.”
“Oh, he has, and no rope will touch my neck.”
“Why, man? What is so grand as to give up eternity?”
“God put me in this miserable life. I could have been a Duke or a great scribe.” Mr. Bramble said.
“Duke or scribe,” Marcus interrupted. “Your bread is dry and overcooked. How could you expect to master the wisdom of the ages or gain the mandate of God and love of men?”
“Yes, I care not for his pathetic devil whining,” Gordan said, folding his arms. “Put a hole in his chest and be done with it. He admitted his crime, and now he looks to justify it. I may be a drunk and a gambler sometimes, but no little girl’s blood have I shed. There is no justification for that. So, let the devil take him, and let’s be done.”
A smile cracked Marcus’s lips. “Not before my knives taste his skin. Will you help me get him back to town?” Marcus reached down for Gordan’s falchion.
“No doubt, boy.” I’ll help bring this monster to justice. Marcus pulled the falchion from his waistband and tossed it to Gordan. He snatched the sword out of the air and slid it from his sheath in one quick motion.
“Think a man like you can stop me?” Mr. Bramble said with a smug self-righteousness.
Gordan flashed his blade. Marcus heard a branch snap behind him, and he glanced back. The fat man had ripped a nice, sturdy club off a tree and strode towards Marcus.
Mr. Bramble took a heavy step closer. “I asked you a question... Gordan. Do you think you can take me with that?”
Gordan, how did Mr. Bramble know... his?
Before Marcus finished the thought, Gordan said, “Why would I kill our best student?”
Marcus’s heart felt like an iceberg smashed ship headed for the numbing, tenebrous depths of the angry ocean. It was then the rushing footsteps hit his ears from his left. He swiveled hard, seeing the fat man sprinting as fast as his stubby legs could carry him. Over his head, he wielded the crude club, ready to smash Marcus’s brow.
Marcus yanked the trigger, and his rifle spit flame. The shot ripped into the fat man’s chest, but his momentum and aim had been set. So, the club still came down with the man. It skipped off Marcus’s scalp, but the brunt of the force crashed into his shoulder.
He let out a low groan as he stumbled backward, and his legs twisted as he hit a slick, moss-covered rock.
Down he went.
His lower back struck a log, and his spine unwillingly arched upwards. Sliding backward off the log, he hit mush and mud. His bones ached, his teeth clenched, and his eyes watered as the pain radiated through him. He heard the cackling of the two men still standing.
“How did you know I would be here?” Mr. Bramble said.
“Didn’t,” Gordan replied. “I think Koch must have just wanted to have some fun. Hell, I didn’t realize we were headed toward the sacrifice until we were almost there.”
“How did Marcus know it was here?”
“Didn’t, I don’t think. Just dumb luck as he chose the path.”
The pain in Marcus’s spine was like an enkindled stone wedged between his vertebrae. Despite this affliction, he reached for his hilt and ripped his sword clean from its sheath. With that, he forced himself to his wobbling legs.
“Wow,” Mr. Bramble said with a wintry smile. “Young bones never cease to amaze me. If I had taken that fall, I might not get back up. Well, I wouldn’t have gotten back up at least six days ago. Now, I don’t know. So what do you want to do with him?”
“I say we sacrifice him like the girl,” Gordan said.
“I say we use him like a girl, and then we sacrifice him like the girl,” a familiar voice said.
Marcus scanned for the location, and his eyes fell on the bleeding fat man. His eyes popped open, and a hellish purple light glowed from them. The fat man struggled to his feet, but he straightened his back with a blood-tinged red smile.
Mr. Bramble stepped forward with a furrowed brow and said, “I always liked you, Marcus. I even felt bad for you. Sigmar did you wrong.”
“That sick man got what he deserved, and it was by my hand it happened.” Marcus pulled up his sword, using it to make Mr. Bramble keep his distance.
“He might have got what he deserved, but you didn’t, my boy. He could have picked anyone, but he chose you. Why?”
Marcus lowered his sword slightly, and he took a deep breath.
“Why embrace a man like that? Why obey the rules of a town like that? You could live a very different life and make them pay simultaneously.” Mr. Bramble stepped closer now, only inches away from his sword.
Behind Mr. Bramble and through the brush, he glimpsed the sun-like vestiges of Angelina’s dress. At the sight of it, he knew what he had to do. He said,” I do not understand God’s plan.”
Mr. Bramble’s lips smiled, but his eyes did not. “His only plan is to watch suffering.”
“You didn’t let me finish,” Marcus said. “I do not understand God’s plan, but there I know I fit.” With that, he swung his sharp-bladed slab, and he hacked without proper edge alignment or skill. Righteous certainty still brought the blade home.
He caught Mr. Bramble’s left arm above the elbow and felt meat, shear, and bone pop. Mr. Bramble screamed as Marcus swung again. He drove the steel harder, catching Mr. Bramble in the cheek, and his head snapped to the left.
“Get him!” the fat man screamed as he rushed forward. Mr. Bramble crashed to the spongy ground with the sword still wedged in bone. Marcus stomped on his head and wrenched his blade free.
He swung at the fat man clubbing him in the gut. His crimson spray mingled with the swamp’s backwater.
“Do you know how hard it is to kill us?” Mr. Bramble screamed as he held what used to be his face. They were hard to kill, but he could still hack them into a gory poultice.
Gordan sprinted towards him with a glinting, whirling sword and gritted teen. Marcus backpedaled, with pain shooting through his spine, and tried his best to parry. The light, razor-like falchion sliced through the thick, wet air with speed Marcus couldn’t match.
Gordan whipped and thrust his blade, changing angle and direction faster than a panicked dragonfly.
Marcus blocked.
Steel bit into steel.
As the sword blades ground, Gordan push-cut with furry, and the falchion slipped Marcus’s hand guard. The blade glided over the top of Marcus’s shoulder and sliced through woolen shirt, then skin.
With an animalistic wail, Marcus swung his fist. Lank and lean muscles propelled that fist into Gordan’s teeth, and he felt the skin of his knuckles split as teeth shattered. Gordan’s head snapped back.
Marcus hosted his sword high and brought the steel down with the power only hate gives. The blurry-eyed Gordan raised his sword to block, but the weight of the sword and force of the blow smashed Gordan’s arms and sword to his chest. The top of Marcus’s blade crashed into Gordan’s brow. Steel edge sank into bone, and Gordan fell with the grace of a tree struck by a thunderbolt. One more hard swing removed his head from neck, a macabre spray of scarlet followed.
Something smashed into his side, and his legs buckled as it hit. He crashed to the ground; shooting pain rippled through his bones. With sword still in hand, he rolled to his back. The blood-soaked fat man stood over him, raising his makeshift club for the death blow.
He brought the club down as Marcus brought his sword up. The club bent and broke on the blade. Marcus swung, clipping the fat man’s knee, snapping bone and sinew. Down the fat men went, screeching as he smashed into the bloody forest floor.
Marcus struggled to his feet as blood and sweat streamed down his chest. With gnashing teeth, he swung. Over and over, he cleaved the monster until his sword hand grew tired.
“You can’t stop it,” Mr. Bramble said through his shattered teeth. “We are just the tip of the spear. Your world will be in flames, and your people, all people, will toss themselves and their children into the blaze.”
Marcus turned. With hands and sword slick with blood, he staggered forward. “I trust not the lips of the Godless.”
Mr. Bramble had propped himself against a rotten stump, and he clenched his blood-pulsing cheek. Claret streams and chunky bits of meat and teeth oozed between chubby fingers as he said, “You can always trust your enemy when he says he will do you ill, and ill we will do.”
“Your wounds are bad, but you could still fight as the others did. Why do you lounge like an old man in a chair?”
“I can’t beat you with fist or blade.”
“Pathetic.”
“Oh, I’ll still win. It just will not be with the sword.”
“You’ll have to do it without a head.”
Marcus raised his sword and made quick work of the devil’s flesh with even faster, more brutal strikes. When his body could give no more, his knees gave way. He was lightheaded, and his body radiated with pain.
The smoldering red sun hung low on the purple western horizon. The heavens looked as if today’s events had bruised it, and maybe they had. When his breath returned, he took the heads of demons and wrapped them in his shirt. Then he spread out his cloak and rolled the rotting vestiges of Angelina on top.
With the heavy burden on his back, he had to take frequent breaks. As night fell like a blacksmith’s hammer, the air grew cold. The silvery moon dominated the now coal-black sky when he exited the hellish swamp and searched for his pony.
As he skirted the wood line, he could catch the slow mutterings of the mangled demonic heads. They whispered dark sentences in strange, archaic, heathen tongues. He would march to the church after reaching town. Then he’d see them drowned in holy water, and it would burn their wicked curses and oaths from their lips.
He gripped his charms as he reached his pony. He was sure they had saved him that night. They didn't do it perfectly or the way he wanted, but nothing ever happens like that. Why should otherworld and divine powers be different
?